MM - your posts seemed to be riddled with inconsistencies but I think I now see (maybe) what bothers you. You were not told of the link between St James and the SES, and you are angry about this. If this is the only - or the chief thing - that has upset you then it shouldn't stand in your way. This BB isn't the only view or even representative of most former pupils. I found Zathura's post today welcome, balanced and even-handed. To focus on your own specific complaints - I don't seem to remember reading, in the thousands of posts on this site, that anyone felt that 'pausing' was an abuse. A Sanscrit GCSE is a whole lot more impressive than a GCSE in media studies.
But - and this is the point I am making - if you really can't bear St James then it would be much better for you to remove your children and place them elsewhere.

How impressive is a Sanskrit GCSE if they have to go through counselling? God forbid that they also have been taught to be dismissive about their own emotional needs so just hide in the SES world. How about that they grow up with a bad attitude to women including their mother? Is it not important to be aware of danger as a parent, and as an organisation that purports to be 'in loco parentis' is it responsible to be so coy about its links/ nay foundation as a school for SES folk!!!!

You obviously have no idea what bothers me. After reading all of your past posts plus Zathura's post today I know that withdrawing my chidlren from the tight reign of the SES is probably the safest and wisest thing to do.

I don't particularly agree that a Sanskrit GCSE is more impressive than a GCSE in media studies. I feel a media studies qualification would be far more appropriate and useful in the work place, unless of course you want to spend your life translating works that have yet to be translated.

As far as pausing is concerned, I don't remember once using the word abuse; what I said was 'that I felt that the pausing done every day has affected their mental well being', who said anything about abuse?

I don't feel it is appropriate for lessons to be interrupted four times in order to pause. Surely if it is going to be done at all, then at the start and end of a lesson is enough. I am told by my child that pausing is carried out up to 20 times in a day. That's an awful lot of pausing for a young child. Perhaps if the teachers at St James spent more time teaching the children properly, instead of making them pause a hundred times a week and interrupting lessons willy nilly in order to make them pause, then these children wouldn't be so far behind academically.

I will leave St James behind because you are right in one thing, I can't bear the place.

St James should never have opened their doors to non SES families. The school was started by SES parents for their children and it should have remained that way. I for one will go but I will also be giving my side of the story to journalists who want to listen so that prospective parents or existing parents who know nothing about the SES are informed properly and not told half truths.

Keir - I do know that the SES and St James were very dismissive about feelings and emotions - perhaps a hangover from Ouspensky days? But there have been significant changes in that department, much more lovingly for the better. This is not to dismiss the hurt you felt when at school but it is to suggest that today's pupils live in a rather different atmosphere.

I have no worse a memory than almost any poster on this board of emotional supression, bullying, and general unhappiness. I was one of a large number that counted that as their normality.

I would be more encouraged to believe what you say that it is all rosy now, if the patently dismissive arrogance of the governors response to the inquiry hadn't been so evident.

If they had done this ONE thing right it would have given so much more confidence than a few verbal platitudes and assurances that it has all changed.

As it is, they messed up. This for me says all that needs to be said about the 'difference' that has apparently miraculously descended on St James and the SES since those bad old days.

If ANY attempt had been made to meet the complainants, a post on the forum, a request for a meeting, nay, a humble ear, rather than the lazy depiction of them as militants and rabblerousers, then maybe that would have been the start of some meaningful reconcilliation.

Too bad they f***ed up again.

You wonder why we are so demanding of meaningful change (by our definition)? We know what went on under the guise of a 'Happy' school, we know what impressions the inspectors were given and what it felt like from the other end. You cannot bullshit people who have seen first hand how the abuses were enabled, nay encouraged, by the INSTITUTION that runs in the background and is the inspiration to St James even today.

And the biggest (current not past) insult I feel - to call what they do 'holistic' at the same time as refusing to engage with the reason why so many dont feel able to post under their own name, parents of current St J children included, refusing to introduce balance in the makeup of the governors comittee, refusing to countenance that they may be totally wrong about past abuse. Holistic my arse!

a different guest wrote:Any idea how the school does in the AIMS tests TD? Or have they been cheating those like Wesley?

I'd also be interested in Erasmus's approach to the new state primary curriculum requirements, which includes teaching thinking skills - reflection, evaluation and metacognition - something the SES doesn't appear to encourage.

The use of the St James curriculum in the hands of a tiny talent pool of SoES / School of Philosophy teachers doesn't seem like a recipe for a "renaissance in education".

And feedback from the Australian schools doesn't accord with Stanton's opinion of the St James shift to being "loving".

Stanton wrote: I do know that the SES and St James were very dismissive about feelings and emotions - perhaps a hangover from Ouspensky days? But there have been significant changes in that department, much more lovingly for the better. This is not to dismiss the hurt you felt when at school but it is to suggest that today's pupils live in a rather different atmosphere.

Feedback from the Australian SoES / School of Philisophy schools (which reproduce the St James curriculum and are staffed by SoES members) indicate that the dismissiveness conerning feelings and emotions is a feature of the teaching. Little children suffering a variety of anxieties that attending school involves receive little comfort, particularly the boys. This has been observed by a number of parents.

ANON-From the Girls' sch. wrote:AHhh just got Tom Grubb's letter at freinds reunited! The second letter i have recieved -quite astonishing how you get your word around!

This letter is not written for the beneficial of the current pupils of the school, is it written because people like you (who have been abused in the past)want you're own revenge and get back.

Current pupils have not been disrupted by any of the teachers! Yes, it is a great letter, with only one purpose!! By signing it, your want some of the best teachers out of the school (who do not abuse any longer)..... i will NOT sign it!

Is this a sign that all the sinister stuff is in the past?

There is no recognition of what is being asked for (see open letter posting and make up your own mind) and only a dismissive assumption that she knows the true nature of Tom's feelings; also an assertion that they don't abuse any longer, although given that it took current posters almost 10 years to realise they were abused mentally as well as physically I would be surprised if she did know.

To me it shows a vapid faux certainty that relies on not being surrounded by 'naughty' people with other points of view. The same head in the sand attitude that the governors have, the same arrogance, the same disengaged intellectual aloofness that I experienced at St J and SES back in the bad old days.

I don't know how old the poster is, but the spelling is bad and the attitude is more akin to an 7 year old than a 16 year old. Who cares if they can pass exams, this child is sadly ill-equipped for normal society, imho.